Genetics expert says Caster enjoys no edge
● Johannesburg-born genetics pioneer Avi Lasarow has claimed to have evidence that strongly suggests female athletes with increased testosterone levels in middle distance sport don’t have a competitive advantage.
London-based Lasarow met minister of sport Tokozile Xasa in Lausanne this week. He is the CE of DNAFit, a company that has pioneered the use of genetics in sport globally since 2013.
Lasarow said their research, which was led by Professor Ildus Ahmetov of Liverpool John Moores University, shows that elevated testosterone does not provide any improvement in events longer than sprint distance.
Speaking to the Sunday Times from Lausanne, Lasarow said their unpublished scientific paper could be used to vindicate 800m world and Olympic champion Caster Semenya in her battle against International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).
Semenya concluded her hearing at CAS on Friday where she wants to stop IAAF from introducing new rules to force “hyperandrogenic” athletes or those with “differences of sexual development” (DSD) to medically lower their testosterone levels.
“Our paper concluded that while elevated testosterone levels, which are a side effect of DSD, are shown to increase performance in sprint events (400m or less) they did not show any improvement in events longer than the sprint distance such as those which Caster Semenya competes in,” read the report they could not present at the hearing because they were not part of the case.
“Serum testosterone is an inherited genetic trait, as are many factors which lead to success in elite sport performance. Think of the advantage of being born tall, akin to a leading basketball athlete. It is only now that we are truly discovering the power of the human genome and its relationship to physical performance. Now that we know this information, we cannot just choose to punish those with a certain genetic variation such as high testosterone in female middle distance athletes, compared to those with another such as height in a basketball player,” he said.
“The study looked at 599 international level female athletes across a number of disciplines and 298 age-matched female control subjects. Athletes’ resting testosterone levels were correlated with their respective level of performance in each event, duration, distance and type. The researchers found a statistically significant correlation with high testosterone and elite performance in the sprint event group, but crucially, no benefit of high testosterone was observed in any of the other groups. The study concluded that resting testosterone levels could be used as an indicator of performance in sprint events, but importantly, not in middle-distance events.”
Lasarow said he travelled to Switzerland to have DNAFit’s point of view in the public domain as the outcome of the case will have far-reaching consequences.
“It is also important that in a case of this magnitude, the court takes into consideration not only published evidence but also any reasons why unpublished research brought to the court’s attention may not have been accepted for publication. “All sport is based on the celebration of genetic differences and the excitement of competition.”